There Has To Be A Better Way

If you’ve been reading this blog for a bit, you’ve probably noticed that we don’t focus much on animal rights/animal welfare. For the most part, Jane and I came to veganism through a desire for better health. And so our focus is health, food, and lifestyle. As time has gone by, the health reasons that motivated us to become vegan in the first place have become less dominant; the thought of eating meat again has become abhorrent. And so, we dip our toes into the issue of anti-vivisection.

Gary, over at Animal Writings has been authoring a difficult series of late. It’s all about the horrors of animal testing, from the abysmal treatment of the animals themselves to the inaccuracies of using animals to determine how drugs/procedures will impact humans. One of the resources he’s used is a book called Sacred Cows and Golden Geese: The Human Cost of Experiments on Animals. My library had a copy, and so I borrowed it. It’s been sitting on the coffee table and every night or two I pick it up, only to put it down again. That’s no criticism of the book. I’m just not sure I want to know more!

Coincidentally, when I picked up the book this evening, I opened to this quote:

There are, in fact, only two categories of doctors and scientists who are not opposed to vivisection: those who don’t know enough about ti, and those who make money from it.

— Dr. Werner Hartinger, MD 1989

The truth is it’s a painful issue to think about. Most of us would rather not consider where our food comes from or how our medications are tested. The scary thing is that this book professes (and documents) that animal testing is unnecessary and causes harm to both animals and humans. So we’re perpetrating barbarism and cruelty for no reason.

In order to evolve as a species, we must treat all sentient beings with respect. It’s time.